just to get the relationship going.....and yeah it is an easy way to show the implications of it....and i suppose it also helps for later on when he is tellin Wier about the feeling of sex, as he is a virgin.

midnight's children and ground beneath her feet, i loved both. apart from the endings. where I felt let down both times.

Fury, I liked the first chapter. Started to find the female characters annoying. Then was back taking it for what it was by the end. (it's a cheesy hollywood movie really, right?)

I've failed to read the satanic verses, because even 100 pages in, i just cant bring myself to read anymore

I'll go for shame next!

I said ground beneath her feet because it was first thing i'd read that was an "everything" book. And it did change what I look for in literature, and made me feel really alive at the same time. I'd always seen novels as something to endure to get the ideas from before that. It was the first time I'd actually enjoyed the process of reading.

and what I know about the overall plot, it's all a thinly-veiled metaphor for the indestructible nature of Catholicism, going as far as to make several similarities between the priest and Jesus himself.

And I only actually watched American Psycho because I heard Rules Of Attraction and Less Than Zero were terrible and I didn't want them to ruin my love for the books. So I think it'll stay like that. But he really is the best living author at the moment in my opinion.

especially seeing earlier posts but...girlfriend in a coma by douglas coupland, it's like a manifesto abandon irony and cynicism in favour of kindness and honesty and try to make the world better, i've never managed to put it into practise. And I like the plot, the nostalgia for youth the eerie setting fuck it I even like the ending there I said it.

True, it is a fantastic book.
I don't think I've read anything really life-changing yet. The FLCL manga, I don't know. Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man is up there, amazingly written, just so effortless and poetic. But my favourite is probably A Scanner Darkly by Phillip K. Dick. I'm a sucker for really imaginative ideas and surreal plots, and his prose is very addictive. Made me want to write, basically. Really trippy.

i think it's good. the only thing is i'm not keen on is the little foot note things, they're clever observations but it does disrupt the flow of the book a little.
slightly stresses me out reading all these recommendations knowing that i've not read 75% of them and will probably never get round to doing it either.

Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut - made me realise that people can write in a style like mine and actually GET PUBLISHED (NB. Obviously I'm not as good as he is)
Holiday on Death Row - Roger McGough - changed my entire approach to poetry
Scepticism Inc. - Bo Fowler - changed my approach to religion. Also led me to read Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
Like a Fiery Elephant - Jonathan Coe - biography of B.S. Johnson - made me realise that not all great writers always write great things (his poetry is terrible)

Whilst I have many, many more favourite books (yes, slightly more advanced than the following), the only one I think that's "changed my life" in the literal sense to a major degree is Harry Potter. Sad, maybe, but this is something that I have been more or less obssessed with for ten years. That's over half my life. It's like, I'm 19 now, and I still have to get the sticker albums, and the top trumps cards and the notebooks. It's quite strange.

Oh, I suppose there is another one, my old Atlas. It was a little out of date (Germany and eastern europe looked somewhat different), but I'd spend night after night flicking through it, learning pretty much everywhere, doing routes etc. Again, it became an obssession - I know have dozens of maps and wall-maps, atlases, globes and travel guides.

In answer to the second one (as much as I do love Harry Potter) my favourties would probably read Hopscotch - Cortazar, One Hundred Years of Solitude, On The Road and The Catcher In The Rye. But I couldn't claim that any of those had really made my life or my views any different.

Quite moving, about the love of a mother. Halfway through it (only started yesterday - it aint massive) but it is affecting me quite a lot. Making me realising how much the old girl has done for me, and also remember my Dad, who passed away a few years ago. All very melancholic and there has been a few times where I have stopped reading just to take it in. Not amazing, but reflective.